Bertram Mitford - A Secret of the Lebombo

“Good-bye now, my own love, my sweet,” he murmured as they stood, locked together in a last long embrace. “I shall see you to-morrow, but it will not be as it has been to-day.”

“Not quite. But we will have other days like this. And – keep up heart – remember, for my sake. When you are disposed to lose it, think of me and feel sure that nothing can part us – as sure as that moon is shining. Good-bye, my love. It is only ‘good-night,’ though.”

No more was said, as he swung her into the saddle. He himself stood there watching her fast receding form, nor did he leave the spot until the sudden subsidence of the canine clamour, told that she had reached her home.

Then he mounted, and took his way slowly back through the moonlit glories of the beautiful slumbering waste.

Vincent Le Sage was riding leisurely homeward to his farm in the Kunaga River Valley.

His way lay down a stony bush road, winding along a ridge – whence great kloofs fell away on either side, clothed in thick, well-nigh impenetrable bush. Here and there a red krantz with aloe-fringed brow rose up, bronze-gleaming in the morning sun, and away below, in front, and on either hand, the broad river valley into which he was descending.

He was a middle-aged man, of medium height, but tough and wiry. He had good features and his short beard was crisp and grizzled, but the expression of his eyes was cold and business-like, as indeed it was bound to be if there is anything in the science of physiognomy, for he was a byword as being a hard nail at a deal, and everything he touched prospered. In fact his acquaintance near and far were wont to say that Le Sage had never made a bad bargain in his life. Perhaps they were right, but Le Sage himself, now as a turn of the road brought some objects in sight, was more than inclined to question that dictum.

The said objects were only some cattle, a most ordinary everyday sight, and the cattle were not even his. Yet a frown came over his face. The cattle were poor, and one or two, to his experienced eyes, showed signs of disease.

“Wyvern’s, of course!” he pronounced to himself wrathfully. “Every case of redwater or brand-ziekte in the whole country-side is sure to be traceable to Wyvern’s cattle or sheep. What the devil could have put into such a fellow’s head that he was any good in the world at fanning? He’d better stick to his fusty books and become a damned professor. That’s about all he’s good for. I doubt if he’s even good for that I doubt if he’s even good for anything.”

These wrathful reflections were due to the fact that he had just met with a reminder – one of many – that he had at any rate made one bad bargain, for Wyvern was engaged to his daughter; and now it was a question only of months perhaps, when Wyvern should be sold up.

Then and there he made up his mind again that the engagement should be broken off, and yet while so making it up – we said “again” – the same misgiving that had haunted him on former occasions did so duly and once more, that the said breaking off would be a matter of no little difficulty even were it ever achieved at all. Wyvern might be a bad fanner, a hopeless one in fact, but he would be a hard nut to crack in a matter of this kind, and Lalanté – well, here was a hard and fast alliance for the offensive and defensive, which would require a breaking power such as he could not but realise to himself he scarcely possessed.

On rode Vincent Sage, mile after mile, still frowning. The good bargain he had made at yesterday’s ale had well-nigh faded from his thoughts now, and as he drew near to his home his private worries seemed to oust his professional satisfaction over his own acuteness and the steady but sure accumulation of the goods of this world. He had liked Wyvern well enough during the earlier period of their acquaintance – in fact more than well enough; but he had all the invariably successful man’s impatience of – even contempt for – the chronically unsuccessful; and in this particular instance his oft repeated dictum to himself – and sometimes to others – was “Wyvern will never do any good for himself or for anybody else either.”

Suddenly he pulled up his horse with a jerk, and emitted a whistle. He was scanning the road, scanning it intently.

“Oh-ho! So that’s how the cat jumps!” he exclaimed to himself, grimly.

He had reached the point where the track to Wyvern’s farm joined the wider road leading to his own. The frown became more of a set one than ever.

“One horse spoor coming this way alone,” he pronounced, “and I know what horse made that spoor. Two horse spoors going back – and the same horse made one of these spoors. That’s the game, is it, directly my back is turned? Well, it’s a game that must be stopped, and, damn it – it shall be.”

In spite of which vehemence, however, that same little cold water misgiving returned to render Vincent Le Sage’s mind uncomfortable.

He rode on, slowly now, keeping his horse at a walk; he was near home and there was no occasion for hurry. But as he went, he read that road like the pages of a book. He would find Wyvern at his place? Not a bit of it. For he had marked the returning spoors of the other horse.

Then again he reined in, suddenly and shortly, for the horse-hoofs had ceased and with them mingled the print of boots – and the said boots spelt one of each sex. From that point the spoor of one horse continued alone. The other was a returning one. This, then, was where they had parted.

Vincent Le Sage had every sign of the veldt at his fingers’ ends, and here, these imprints on a scantily used road, were as the very elementary side of his craft to him. They had not been made to-day; there were evidences of the effect of dew to show that. They had been made yesterday, and tolerably late at night; that too, he took in, and doing so felt more than ever justified in his resentment. What on earth had Lalanté come to that she should ride over, alone, to this man’s place directly his own back was turned, and – return with him late at night? Now he had good ground for interference, and what his inner consciousness told him was still better, a just grievance against Wyvern.

“He’ll be sold up,” he said to himself in hot wrath, as he covered the short distance which still lay between him and his homestead. “He’ll be sold up, and I’ll buy the place – I will, by God, even if it’s the only rotten bargain I ever made in my life. I won’t leave the chance to any other fool, with some arrangement perhaps for keeping him on on the halves. No – I’ll buy it myself – although it won’t be worth a tinker’s twopenny damn for years to come. Then he’ll have to clear, and that’s what I want.”

A Hottentot stable boy ran to take his horse as he dismounted at the gate. Lalanté came down the garden path to meet him. Her greeting of him was unreservedly affectionate. Perhaps his own to her thawed more than he was aware of.

“Come along in, father dear,” she cried, hooking her arm within his, and drawing him through the open door into the cool room beyond. “And tell me how you got on. But first of all, you must have something after your ride,” unlocking a cupboard and producing a decanter of excellent Boer brandy. “Now, did you pick up anything worth having?”

“Not bad in a small way. Couple of dozen slaughter-oxen of Piet Nel’s – he’s in a bad way, you know, and obliged to sell I can turn them down upon Hartslief at Gydisdorp, at an easy two pound a head profit, if not more. There was nothing else quite worth taking on. Warren’ll do the delivery for me on very small commission.”

He had thawed still more as he watched his daughter moving about, ministering to his comfort. Any preconceived idea that Vincent Le Sage was of the tyrannical order of parent may at once be jettisoned. He was – as we have said – simply intolerant, to a fault, of the unsuccessful man.